


I the Heir of All the Ages Dark

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-09-02
Updated: 2002-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 07:24:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex learns his past goes back further, and darker, than he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I the Heir of All the Ages Dark

## I the Heir of All the Ages Dark

by Ciel

[]()

* * *

"I the Heir of All the Ages Dark" 

NOTE: Feedback is lovely. Please send some to todance@hotmail.com 

* * *

"Lex." Lionel looked at him, smiling almost fondly. "How long were you planning to keep this secret from me?" 

From one angle, the situation was farcical: Lionel and Dominic arriving at the castle unexpectedly, Clark in a bathrobe running a rack in the study; Lex - also bathrobed, robe loosely tied, hickies and bite marks clearly visible on his throat and chest - just entering with a tray of snacks for two. Oh yes: a stage set for the scene "Lovers Discovered by Outraged Father." 

"Quite a find, son. I have to say, you've outdone yourself this time." 

Pause - for laugh? But there is no laugh. There is no farce. 

For Dominic had a briefcase open on Lex's desk, containing files, specimens, videotapes, electron microscope media. Lionel had a glowing green rock in his hand. And he was smiling almost fondly at Lex while Clark convulsed and gasped at his feet, bathrobe fallen open, pool cue clattering to the floor beside him. 

"How much do you think this thing is worth, hmm? On an open market." 

Lionel nudged Clark with his walking stick. _Thing._ He meant Clark, not the rock. _Clark._

Lex took the champagne bottle by its neck in one hand, skimmed the tray edgewise at Dominic with the other, and launched himself at his father, bottle swinging. None of it worked: Dominic brushed the tray aside, knocking a few items off the desk; and Lex had barely gone five steps when - 

Lionel sighed. "Dominic." 

Dominic kicked Lex's feet out from under him; Lex fell, arms braced - he could do this, get right back up again - then Dominic dropped onto his back, knees driving Lex down, and down, winding him and crushing him into the floor. And Dominic stayed there on him, driving the last bit of air out of his lungs. 

Lex stared at Clark. Clark was in agony; quite possibly dying; Clark looked at him. Shock, pain...Cark looked at what lay directly in front of Lex's futilely outstretched arm...shock, pain, _betrayal_. 

The shit from Dominic's briefcase. Oh, god. Clark knew what it was, where it'd come from; only one place it could have come from, after all. He'd promised to destroy it all; he'd _sworn_ he would. He - 

A figurine, fallen from the desk, had rolled very nearly to Lex's nose. He focused on it - small bronze thing, Mesopotamian demon-goddess, crouched like a sphinx, smiling with pointed teeth. Idiot thing to look at, but better than Clark's face. His own heart ripped out and beating in Dominic's hand would be a better sight to see right now than Clark's face. 

"Let's go, "Lionel said to Dominic. He nodded toward Lex. "Leave that. It's of no further use to me. " _This_ " -- another nudge at Clark - "is all I need." 

Clark's head lolled, rolled, turned back to Lex. "Lex...I'm dead...help..." 

No. _No._ Get _up_ Lex. On your _feet_ , damn you. 

He scrabbled desperately under the weight on his back. Dominic looked down at him. Smiled. And swung the heavy bottle, smashing it over Lex's head. 

White-out. 

* * *

A high keening wail, rushing, as the wind through a thousand trees, awakened him. He lay still, listening. The keen was beautiful, like water running over rocks. The keen was mournful, like moonlight spilling over the dead. The keen had voices, words; a song... 

why did you touch him  
awakening passions he cannot understand why did you inspire him to fight  
a battle he cannot comprehend 

He put his hands up to his ears to block them out. 

I will not listen. He is my friend. No harm will come to him. 

why do you send him on a journey   
he cannot finish, to a door  
he cannot open 

He is strong. As strong as I, perhaps more. My twin, my image, my better self. 

The singers didn't know. They didn't understand. His friend was the strong one, the wise one. His friend would follow him, protect him; as heroes do, so would his friend do; for him; for the King. 

but he counseled against this  
you would not hear him  
he is by you for love  
not praise and you  
will lose him 

But he was the King and on his way to slay a monster and claim the monster's lands for his own. He would be praised forever, remembered forever. If there was fear, he would slay that as well. For the lands, for the praise, for the forever. 

His friend was afraid. He mocked him for it; gently, but mocking even so. 

We've never lost. What is it that troubles you so? You, who know these lands? 

Yes, I know them. I was born here, while you...this is a road you have never traveled. 

He smiled at his friend. Who was not, after all, a king; could not know victory and praise were the very lifeblood of kings; that fear and death, and fear of death, were things to set aside. 

Be strong Enkidu. Be with me. 

I can no other, Enkidu said, his voice low and choked with love and fear. 

Gilgamesh did lead his friend into the wildlands, into battle against themonster Humbaba. At the end of the day, Humbaba lay dead. And Enkidu lay slowly bleeding his life away from blows he had taken protecting Gilgamesh, for Gilgamesh had frozen with fear at the first sight of Humbaba 

Enkidu, crushed and broken. Enkidu, rising up to touch Gilgamesh one last time. Asking, Why am I to die and you to wander on alone? Is that the way it is with friends? 

"Wait - no. That's not...right." 

He was in the forest, Enkidu dead at his feet. 

"It wasn't supposed to end this way!" 

The beasts of the wildlands came out from their hiding places. He felt their eyes sidelong on him. He spun around. 

One animal dared look him in the eye. He stared at...her? 

For she crouched among the beasts, wore a beast's pelt, but her limbs were a woman's limbs and her face was a woman's face. 

"Of course it does. Did," she corrected herself, and stood "It _always_ 'ends this way.'" She crossed the distance to him. She was dark and small and oddly familiar, and he could have struck her down as easily as breathing. She lifted her hands, flat, palms up, and moved them up and down, as though weighing something. "It's a balance, dear, and you're always found wanting." 

"I can change this. I can --" 

"-turn back time?" She smiled, as hyenas smile at crippled deer. "5000 years of time? Even if you could, it's not time you need to turn, but yourself. And five millennia were more easily turned than your own eternal nature." 

"My. Eternal. Nature." He looked down at Enkidu. Riddles, now? Gods spoke more straightly than she, come to torment him over his dead love's body. He still had his axe. He swung it. 

She wasn't there. She was behind him. He tried to turn around, and could not move. 

"What was it this time, 'Gilgamesh'?" Voice like springwater, cold and clear. "Praise, called glory in times to come. Remembrance, another word for fame. And the right of kings to work their will, unmindful of what damage they do along the way." 

He felt himself released. Spun around. 

She was gone. 

* * *

His guilty secret, that he couldn't let go, that he couldn't let go _of_. Like tonguing an aching tooth; like returning to a gravesite, or the scene of a crime: he couldn't _let go_. Even though he'd promised. 

It wasn't as if he'd _use_ the tapes, the files. Clark meant too much to him. 

But... _having_ them. Made him feel stronger (than what?) In control (of what?). His secret hoard of priceless information. 

It might be needed someday. He might need to prove what he knew... 

No. No. Not that. 

He might need to...help Clark. Yes. No telling what kind of trouble Clark might get into someday, dashing around rescuing people from one lethal weirdness or another. Inevitably, he'd be found out. Inevitably, some cold and calculating mind would wonder how Clark was possible; ponder how he could be _used_. Lex knew the type very well. He'd been sired and reared by the type. (He _was_ the type.) 

He could help Clark, with the information so carefully gathered; much of it data Clark _himself_ had given Lex. The hair samples, fluid specimens....It was _Clark_ who had said: study me, analyze me; I want to know, too. Need to know. 

No one would ever need to take by force what he had already been willingly given. Right? 

Yes, that was it. Keep the files, the tapes. For Clark's own good. 

Like tonguing an aching tooth. Like returning to a gravesite, or the scene of a crime. 

* * *

A kithara note, jagged and shrill; as if its strings had been, not merely strummed, not merely severed, but tortured first. 

The sound lanced through him, bringing him bolt upright in bed, one hand going to his chest, half-expecting to find a wound. 

"Sing, Hellas! Sing of deeds fair and fell, done for fame and fortune's favor; forever done and done again; forever failed and failed again." 

The voice was (familiar?) no better than the kithara's scream. A jackal's yelp, it was, twisting every note, every word. 

Then he was out of the bed, out of the tent, without awareness of having moved at all. The sky was silver, as though under a full moon; but there was no moon. Only the endless silver sky. 

Two statues flanked the tent opening. He looked again - not statues, but guards, in full hoplite armor, sword and lance at the ready. Frozen, motionless, not even breathing. Even the torchlight flames stood still, their red-and-yellow tongues the only color in the silver pearl landscape. 

He turned his head back to the tent. Saw the campaign cot, the table covered with unrolled scrolls, maps, wax tablets. 

Everything motionless. The air too still, too thick. 

"Sing, Hellas, of scant-souled men, who put pride before honor and vanity before pride; who deed their dearest's deaths for their own prickly hide." 

He was suddenly at the base of a low hill, looking up at a...figure, crouched on the crest. Impossible to tell what it was - god or daemon, animal or man - bathed as it was in that sourceless silver light. 

Its head swiveled slowly to peer down at him. Eyes large and dark and expressionless; brow and face framed by thick dark hair; a shape like a wing curled by its shoulder. It cocked its head and stood up. 

It was a woman, short and thin and dark, hair all in stiff braids down to wiry shoulders; the - wing - a kithara, discarded when she stood, sounding one last plaintive discord as she dropped it. 

"There you are. Again." 

Another gap in time and she was standing before him. He jumped, couldn't help it; she looked pleased. 

"It _does_ move. Does it speak?" 

"Who--" am I -"are you?" 

"Oh, am I forgotten already? I think my feelings are hurt." 

"What is this place?" 

"It speaks, yes, but in banalities. Who am I, who are you, what is this place." She affected an exaggerated yawn. "One of these epochs, one of you will say something original. That hope alone keeps me going." 

"Did the gods send you? Go back to Olympus. Tell them Achilles--" Achilles; right, "--has lost his taste for their tricks and riddles." 

"Would that I could, if only to watch the ruckus. 'Achilles, son of Thetis; by Styx anointed and by Zeus favored; mighty commander of vast armies says, to the gods assembled: bugger off. All of you, including the ones backing him this week.' Wouldn't it be pretty." 

"I command _nothing_. Go bewitch Agamemnon. Whisper prophecies in _his_ ear." 

"Thanks, but no. Let the Atreus go to hell in his own handbasket. I'm on the clock, dear, and so are you. Time looks vastly rich and slow only from this end. From the other...well." 

"Time has no end -" 

"-and travels in only one direction, forward? Oh, but you'd be amazed, the tricks we can do with it." 

"I have," he said impatiently, "a war to win, and no mind to play whatever--" 

"A war? Is there a war? One would never know, seeing you sulk in your tent. Or did you have in mind letting Agamemnon fuck things up in his inimitable fashion, and then go charging in to the save the day?" 

He lifted his head. "They'll rally to _me_. When they see my panoply, when they see I've returned to lead them." 

"You know, it's the funniest thing. Someone else already had that very idea." She put a finger to her lips and looked around inquiringly. "Where _is_ Patroclus, anyway?" 

The name, the way she said it, was like another blow; he couldn't think why. He glanced back at the tent. Tried to remember if Patroclus had been in bed beside him when he awakened, and couldn't. 

He stared at the - whatever she was. "What have you done with him?" 

"The question is, what have _you_ done. To him." Her lips drew back in a smile as warm and sincere as Dionysus' as he summoned the maenads against Pentheus. "Let me show you." 

And then they were...elsewhere. Inside the walled city, where piles of refuse and half-starved Trojans in rank tatters and malodorous air attested to years of siege; where women stood atop roofs and walls and anything else they could find, ululating and praying and shouting encouragement to their men; where soldiers ran at each other, over fallen foe and comrade alike, in dust-choked maelstroms of confusion, fear and purifying rage; eyes under helms wild and blank, mouths open, yelling paeans to gods, to courage to daemons; arms swinging swords or hurling lances, cutting and spitting; limbs leaping free from bodies and heads from necks; blood everywhere, running down armor, spattering skin, soaking the dust into dull red mire - 

\--the riot, the tumult, the armies, passed Achilles and the daemon woman by as if they didn't exist, weren't there. 

Looking for Agamemnon's panoply, he saw his own instead. 

His first thought was that Agamemnon had stolen it. But he knew that slim graceful body far too well. He felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him sickened and dizzy. 

" _Patroclus_. No: he's not a soldier; he's my _squire_ , my _love_ , my--" 

"Sacrifice." 

He glared at her. "He wears my armor, forged by Hephaestus--" 

"And a fat lot of good it'll do him. He faces Hector." 

He tried to run. Couldn't move. "Let. Me. _Go_." 

She cocked her head at him. "Go? And do what, exactly? Naked, no armor, not even a meat knife?" 

He watched Troy's greatest warrior face off against the inexperienced stripling. The stolen panoply was Patroclus' only advantage. Hector knew the legend, knew where that armor had been forged, and by whom: knowledge made him warier than he otherwise would have been. "No one can kill me. I can win through to him; take his place--" 

"No one needs to kill you, dear, nor even stop you; only slow you down." 

Patroclus attempted a strike; Hector caught the blow easily on his shield, swung back. Patroclus all but leaped backward. 

"Besides, it's _done_. History and all that." 

"Slow... _stop_ time; you've done so already, for no better reason than to bedevil me; do so _now_ and I can--" 

She shook her head. "Sorry. Can't. It's not just that it's already happened, it's that it's already happened so long ago. Entire pantheons, cultures and excruciating college curricula are based on these events. Can't change all _that_. Anyway...you're here for an object lesson, so let's get on with it." 

Hector realized he wasn't fighting Achilles. 

"What was the reason this time, 'Achilles'?" Again, that parody of inquiry, finger to lips and brows raised. "Pride - not even so lofty a reason as the last. Agamemnon dissed you, took away your trophy woman; so let's do the big blue funk, boo hoo." 

Or maybe Hector didn't _care_. Kill whoever was in that armor - everyone else would think it _was_ Achilles. 

"Sit in your tent. While good men on both sides die. While Patroclus pleads with you. Don't stain your honor, Achilles. Don't leave us to Agamemnon's ruinous incompetence, Achilles. Get _over_ yourself, Achilles. But did you listen?" 

Hector stepped forward, past Patroclus' inexpert guard. 

"No. You cradled your wounded pride like a firstborn son." 

Hector's sword flashed. 

"You let Patroclus go off to save your face for you." 

Blood gouted. Patroclus fell. 

"You let him die for you. _Again_." 

* * *

Of course he would get rid of all of it. He doubted he could devise any more useful assays anyway. mtDNA was good only for background information - genetic drift, ancestry, that sort of thing -- for more specific data, more unique-identifier type of data, he'd need nuclear DNA and you can't get complete nuclear DNA from anything but blood and tissue samples. 

Small chance of that. Even if Clark were agreeable, no amount of consent rendered his skin any less unbreakable. Only green meteorite could accomplish _that_ particular feat, and - 

No, Lex. Stop it. Don't even _think_ \-- 

...of Clark, trusting and loving Clark, beautiful Clark, helpless; tied down, ligatured; veins standing high and round... 

_Stop_. 

The hell of it was, it'd work. The deeper hell of it was, Clark would allow him to...to... 

_No_. Push the thought away; burn it and demagnetize and degauss it, crush and rip it up, along with all the rest. 

But, oh, the temptation. Knowledge and power; knowledge is power; imagine the power in having knowledge nobody else can or will, ever. Only _him_. Knowledge Daddy Dearest would burn to know, to have, to use. Just the thought of owning something Lionel would go insane wanting and not having was oh, so sweet. 

Damn Clark. Damn Clark anyway; how dare he trust Lex that much? Hadn't he been paying _attention_? Had love turned him so stupid he'd forgotten what Lex _was_? 

Stop it, Lex. Don't even think it, Lex. Get rid of the shit before someone (Lionel) stumbles onto it. 

He would. Really. Any day now. 

* * *

_My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand._ _His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely._ _This is my beloved; and this is my friend._ _His love to me wonderful, passing the love of women._

Tel Gezer was a tiny speck of a city -- barely enough priests, as the saying went, to lift the ark - but rich it assuredly was, loyal to the king it assuredly was, and stubborn? Like unto a spavined camel. He'd given up sending men into the place. Fortunately, he knew stealth as well as he did frontal assault. What his soldiers could not gain, his spies would. He had only to wait - and waiting, God knew, he'd become good at. 

Nothing like being promised a crown by a man who hates you to teach you patience. 

So it was with no small surprise that he saw the gates swing wide and Tel Gezer's populace come spilling out - as if he and his men were behind them, chasing them with swords, rather than nowhere near them, watching in boggled wonder. 

He didn't have to wonder long. One of his spies, running from the city with everyone else, came straight to him. Breathless, wild-eyed, and grinning like a madman, the fellow half-knelt, half-fell before him and gasped out his news. 

"The King is dead." 

His hands clenched into fists. "When? Where? How?" 

"One day ago. Mt Gilboa - fighting the Amalekites." 

The wave of elation stopped dead before it had a chance to really get started, and he was down on his knees beside the spy, pulling the man's head back by a fistful of hair until his neck bowed and rasping, "What of the prince? What word of Jonathan?" 

The spy's eyes rolled and he cringed. "Dead...dead as well." 

"Dead--" Both of them. Saul and Jonathan. The beast and the beauty. Both, _both_. 

"Ein Gedi," David said blankly. "I should have killed him then." 

_Stay thy hand; slay not the King._

He remembered that day very well. The cave, barely cooler than the desert beyond it, but kindly dark. Sweat in his eyes, dripping from his nose, his chin, his whole body streaming with it, the dagger slippery in his hand. Breathing in shallow gasps air hot and thick as tallow. 

And the King - his enemy; his would-be murderer scores of times over - asleep. Asleep, lying relaxed on the ground. Head relaxed on the embroidered cushion. Jaw tilted up, just a little, just enough; wax-stiffened beard tilted up, just a little, just enough, to expose the throat beneath. 

David held his breath. Tried to tighten his grip on the dagger, on his resolve, on his nerves... 

_Stay thy hand; slay not the King._

Surely...surely God would not have permitted him to come this far - away from his fighting band, away from the cities falling to him one by one; away and across the desert to Ein Gedi; to this time, this point, where he held a dagger a bare span from Saul's throat - surely God would not have permitted all this, only to warn him off _now_. 

Stay thy hand-- 

People, priests - fools all - now liked to say God had done exactly that: tempted him, then said no. _Fools_. God had had nothing to do with - that hadn't been God's voice and those hadn't even been the right words. 

"Please don't, David; please, Beloved; don't kill my father." 

And Jonathan hadn't even _been_ there. Didn't need to be. So closely bound they were, bodies and souls, hearts and minds, so much had Jonathan become his twin, his bright image, his better self. Jonathan didn't have to be anywhere near him for David to know, to see, what he would think, say, do. 

He had almost felt Jonathan, there in the cave beside him, murmuring. Jonathan's hands - soft hands, to go with a soft heart; Saul tried his literally damndest to make a warrior of Jonathan with but scant success - Jonathan's sweet hands on his wrists, sweet voice saying _please don't_ , sweet face imploring. 

\--please don't kill my father. 

And he hadn't. How's that for a triumph of sentiment over practicality? 

He'd cut a piece from Saul's cloak instead. To show him. How close, how near he'd come. And Saul had cried - what a waterworks the old savage was, always bursting into tears over one thing or another; not that it had ever stopped him slitting the throat of the person he'd just wept all over- and promised David his kingdom. 

Even then, he'd wondered where that left Jonathan. 

So he didn't kill Saul, and Saul didn't honor his promise, didn't stop hunting him; and was anyone surprised? Hah. 

But. Better so. Take what was his, his way. Take Israel from Saul one city at a time, raise Judah against him - much better than smile and wait, smile and be grateful, smile and accept what was given. 

Even then, he'd wondered where that left Jonathan. 

Now he knew. Now... 

"-You will march to Judah first, of course." 

"Judah? Judah was a ...stepping stone. The moment is now. Israel will be in mourning, mad with grief, an easy -" 

"Hush. Judah first, then Israel. I have seen it thus, so must it _be_ thus." 

Did he mention that he hated prophets nearly as much as he'd hated Saul? 

Samuel. Of course Samuel would be here. The moment he'd foreseen, he said. The moment when the world would turn like a great wheel and bring David to greatness, he said. Of _course_ Samuel could be right there, Sammy-on-the-spot, to see it done, call it destined, remind everyone he'd predicted it, and take his share of reflected glory. 

Odd that Samuel hadn't _foreseen_ , hadn't _mentioned_ , one small detail: Jonathan's death. 

Someone had fetched Samuel to him - no; they were in Samuel's tent. He, David, must have gone there. He didn't remember, but he must have done, because this was certainly Samuel's tent, not his. Samuel took piety very seriously, he did; never going anywhere without that brooding, long-gaze look ("don't mind me; I'm communing with the Lord"), entire ox-carts of sacred texts, and that gaudy horror of an ark, you'd think the Persians made it, gilded and jeweled and with so many cherubim on it you had to wonder if any were left in the firmament to keep God company. 

"I was...going to rule Judah while...Jonathan...ruled Israel. Side by side. Build an empire." 

"It was not meant." 

Ghastly thing, that ark. But it did draw the eye. Better to stare at the ark - and be stared at back, by the gold cherubim's tiny jeweled eyes - than look at Samuel - 

"Not _meant_? _Did_ you foresee this? See my Jonathan go to his death...and not _tell_ me?" 

\--because otherwise his hands would be at Samuel's throat. 

Samuel gestured, gently but dismissively, muttered something about unclean, unseemly. Caught himself - or maybe just noticed David's hands clenching on the table's edge hard enough to splinter the wood - and said, "It could never have been. You know this. Jonathan could never have held Israel against Saul's other sons. You would inevitably have had to take the land by the sword. And if you think, having done so, you would have simply handed it back over to Jonathan -" 

"I _would_ \--" 

"-then pardon me for paraphrasing a false god, but you don't know yourself at all." 

"I. Love...," breath caught, "Loved. Jon--" 

"You loved the boy, and he was a boy still. Israel needs a man." Samuel paused. " _He_ knew. _He_ saw your destinies must fall away from one another." More sternly. "They had already begun to, hadn't they?" 

Saul was a weeper. Jonathan, too, could cry with the best of them. David? Never. _Never._ Certainly not here, not now, in front of Samuel and that gilded sepulcher of an ark and - 

(was one of the cherubim _really_ looking back at him? laughing?) 

  * God and everyone. As much as he might want to. 



(uncoiling from the ark, tiny idol come to life, arms stretching and wings flexing and tiny mouth moving, saying 

( _you_ try crouching forever on a arktop, see how cramped _you_ get, boyo- 

before jumping lightly away from the ark, darkening and growing as she descended; landing lightly and soundlessly behind Saul.) 

No, David never cries. David just loses his mind, that's all. 

Wings tucked neatly back, away, vanished. Wiry thin arms loosely embraced Samuel from behind. Piquant face rested atop Samuel's head, chin in his hair, mouth grinning at David. 

Dour holy Samuel with an eldritch female _thing_ draped over him: a sight worth a laugh or too, even now. The prophet didn't notice. Seemed to've fallen asleep, eyes open but unseeing; body relaxed but unmoving. 

The no-longer-golden mouth opened, revealing small sharp teeth. "What did he say to you, dear? When you revealed your Grand Plan. What did your Jonnie say?" 

And that quenched laughter completely. 

What Jonathan had said was: 

" _You're working for the_ Philistines? _Goliath's slayer is now...Goliath?_ " 

A meeting; _the_ meeting, secret and private and weeks in the planning, to see Jonathan for the first time in....years. Time stolen from the campaign of arms to mount one of the heart. Woo Jonathan away from his disastrous father; love and confide and plan as they had done for so long, so long ago. 

"I'm working, as you put it, for myself, Jon. Let Achish believe what comforts him and keeps his gold coming my way. He claims with royal writ cities mine by right of arms; they'll acclaim _me_ King when the time comes, as Judah will, and then--" 

"You're a mercenary in the pay of the Philistines," Jonathan repeated. Say it often enough and maybe it'll make sense. "You're killing people...you think you can climb to a throne over the bones of the very men you mean to rule?" Jonathan shook - his head, his hands, his whole body. "That - that's no way to win a kingdom." 

"For those of us not fortunate enough to be born to one, it's the only way." 

The lovely face wasn't so lovely right now. Stricken, disbelieving, staring at him as though at a stranger. "And me, David; what about me? What kind of son, of prince, do you mean to make of me: abandon my father, my people -- my _son_ \-- run away and consort with the enemy?" 

" _I'm not your enemy._ " 

"Was this what you meant all along?" Jonathan touched himself, his mouth, his body. "All the kisses, the caresses, the...was my father right about you all along?" 

"Your father never uttered a word he _meant_ , never swore but to foreswear himself, never gave a promise but that he broke it. Well, he'll keep this one. And I want you with me when he does." 

" _Why_? So the last thing he sees on this mortal earth is me beside you as you kill him?" 

"You'll be King--" 

" _When_?" Sharp. "Before you? After you?" 

"During. While. _Beside_ me: I hold Judah, you hold Israel, we can build an _empire_ , Jon." He couldn't believe Jonathan couldn't _see_. 

"I don't want an empire. Secure borders are enough; there must be more in life than all war, all the--" 

"God's _glory_ , Jonathan; how to do you think borders _stay_ secure, but by pushing forever forward?" 

Jonathan kept shaking his head. "Stop. Stop this. Now. I can't -- I can't _hear_ this." 

_Grow up_ David wanted to shout at him. This is how the world _is_. 

"If you stop - now, right now - I can still mend matters. I can go to the King, I can--" 

"Jonathan." 

"-say anything...say you'll release the cities, say you'll turn your cloak - god, David, you've done so often enough already - and I'll back you, I'll swear a sacred _oath_ you're telling the truth - just. Don't. Do this. Don't...ask me to betray my father, my people..." 

Tell him, she said. Tell him the only way to save his people is to betray his father. Tell him the only way to stay with you is to betray his people. Tell him the only way to save himself is to betray his father _and_ his people. 

Tell him, David: the only way to win is to lose whatever made the winning worthwhile. 

Instead, he said, "I want you with me." 

"For love?" Jonathan spat the word. "Or to put a proper face on regicide, patricide, and treachery?" 

"What world, "David rasped, "do you live in? God's _Name_ , it's not this one. A kind and lovely world yours must be, where faith is rewarded, words are kept, and sons never ever raise armies against their fathers." 

"We make our worlds. By each step and every act, we make the world we live in. Every choice and decision, every day's another weave of the tapestry. And yours...yours is...twisted. God, David. You've sold Israelites to a Philistine king; you'll sell _him_ for your own ambition; you tell me to do the same to my people, my father - and you want me to believe I'm not on the block as well? Or maybe you just haven't thought yet of who or what you'll sell me for..." Jonathan swallowed. "God. I never knew. Never..." Backing away. 

"Jon. _Jonathan_. Come back--" 

But he hadn't, of course. He'd fled to his father's side, told him God-knew-what, and marched alongside him to Mt. Gilboa. 

"The last bulwark crumbled, the last constant shattered, the tapestry unwound," she murmured, still eyeing him from atop Samuel's head. "His boyhood friend, lover, hero revealed as an ambitious trickster just like anyone else. It would be interesting to know how many men he took with him on that last foray. If he took any at all." 

David put his face in his hands. Anther mind's image far too easy to conjure. Jonathan, his Jonathan, heartsick and horrified, charging forward to find honor or death or preferably both rather than endure the knowledge, the _life_ David had limned. 

"Too much a romantic, that boy. Trusting, loving, silly child... _Say it_." 

"Say-?" 

"'Better so'," she mimicked perfectly. "'I'll take what's mine, my way.'" 

"No--" 

She lifted her hands, flat, palms up, as if weighing something. "Jonnie's love or Jonnie's lands? Can't have both. He's too impractically idealistic. An inconvenient boy with inconvenient conscience - and now, conveniently, not in the picture anymore. You can memorialize him now; keep the memory of the romance without the messy actuality. _Much_ better. Yes? You can get on with the really important stuff. Destiny and such." 

"Damn you--" 

"Because he would have held you back, you know. Reminded you of what you could have been, rather than what you settled for becoming. Just as he's always done, all the times and lives you two have had together. Dreams a love; a Gilgamesh, an Achilles, a David," sharp-toothed smile, "a Henry here, a Richard there; and, oh yes, let's not forget our _Alexanders_...always dreaming all those versions of you better than they were. Are. Will be." 

"Stop--" 

"Always loving. Always losing. Failing. Dying. Dying with you, dying for you, dying because of you." 

"Please--" 

"You never learned to count the cost; he's never counted anything else." 

Ever. Never. Other times, other lives, and he was 

howling over his love's dead body; Hephaestion poisoned, sickened, and left to die while he was too busy to notice, his generals watching in terror 

demanding to be rid of a meddlesome priest and recoiling when it was done, Beckett dead, his own damnation assured 

ravening through his entire family, betraying cousins to uncles, sending uncles to execution and children to the Tower; arranging the judicial murder of Anthony, his Anthony, his perfect gentle knight, for daring to try and stop him 

building empires, taking kingdoms, creating dynasties; all of them mighty and splendid; all of them hollow and gone; his names each a memory, a curse, a byword for tyranny, treachery, murder 

A light laugh, malicious and amused. "You think _Clark's_ the one not paying attention? Pick the glass bits out of your scalp, dear, and tell me: was it worth the cost this time, too?" 

Clark...? Oh, god. Oh, no. Please, not that, not more, not _again_... 

"Time looks vastly rich and slow only from this end. From the other...well--" 

He was...he was Time's own rubber band, stretched too far in far too many directions and now...snapping; and he was 

on the floor of his study, half dead and bleeding, while Clark vanished forever into his father's laboratories 

watching Clark writhe at his father's feet 

taking what was given in love and trust; keeping the knowledge, hoarded, that was power, waiting; not letting go, not counting the cost, refusing to acknowledge there would _be_ one 

"-but you'd be amazed, the tricks we can do with it." 

He was. 

Lex. 

In his lab. Castle basement lab. Fingers on the scanning microscope keyboard, alien cells on the screen. 

Snapped back into his body, consciousness a tidal wave smashing against his skin from the inside, awash in himself from fingertips to toes, mind crashing back into his brain; clammy with sweat, stomach heaving, throat spasming - 

\--barely making it to a wastebasket in time. 

He crouched by the wastebasket, breath ragged gasps, thoughts shattered chaos. 

* * *

"That's one hell of a bonfire you've got going." Clark dropped his backpack onto a sofa and sat next to Lex on the carpet in front of the fireplace. His nose wrinkled. "Smells awful. What're you burning?" 

"Secrets." 

Clark's eyes widened. He stared at Lex, at the fire. "Mine?" 

"Yours. Mine. Ours." Lex lay back, one arm folded behind his head. Clark's gaze, dark and thoughtful, pressed down on him. 

"I wondered--" Clark stopped, took a deep breath. "I wasn't sure you would." 

"I almost didn't." He cupped Clark's face in one hand, half-expecting him to pull away and going nearly weak with relief when he did not. "Come down here. I need to tell you a ... story." 

Clark nestled against him, head on his shoulder. Lex closed his eyes, feeling the boy warm and solid, whole and _alive_ in his arms. He held Clark tight, closed his eyes tighter, and didn't care when the tears escaped. 

* * *

"-gone, Mr. Luthor. Everything. Like there was never anything there. Bleeding wild goose chase, you sent me on. You don't pay me enough to risk getting nailed for nothing." 

"I pay you for results, Grey; not excuses." 

"Christ. Did you hear me? Nothing's _there_. Not in the lab. Not in the computers. Not in the _dumpster_ , for Jesus' sake." 

"I must know what he's been working on." 

"Other than jumping his sodding boyfriend--" 

"His _wh_ \--" 

"-I haven't a sodding clue. Bloody ask him yourself, why don't you." 

A brief, cold silence. Then: "Yes. I believe I will." 

* * *

"Lex." Lionel looked at him, mouth compressed to a thin line. "How long were you planning to keep this secret from me?" 

Clark in a bathrobe, running a rack in the study. Lex, also in a bathrobe - loosely tied, hickies and bite marks clearly visible on his throat and chest - carrying a pitcher of champagne mimosas in one hand and a tray of snacks for two in the other. Lionel by the desk, leaning on his walking stick, trying for insouciance and not succeeding very well. 

Lex didn't _quite_ ignore Lionel; just brushed past him to put tray and pitcher on a table. He poured two glasses. Clark came over, pool cue still in hand, looking at Lionel as if only good manners kept him from whacking Lionel with it. 

"Keep what secret, Dad?" 

Lionel audibly ground his teeth. "You've outdone yourself this time." 

Lex brushed his hand down Clark's cheek. Clark smiled and moved into the caress, not talking his eyes off Lionel. "Yes. I have. Gonna get it right this time, too." 

"Did you flatter yourself that I'd never find out? Do you think I'll _allow_ this... unacceptable liaison to continue? Did you spare the slightest thought for my reaction?" 

"Hmm." Lex drank some mimosa, eyeing Lionel...strangely. "Interesting questions. Shall I answer them all at once, or in series?" 

Lionel's eyes narrowed. Something...different... about the boy. 

"All at once," Clark said, "and he leaves faster." 

"But the other way makes a deeper impression." Lex leaned in, licked a bit of orange pulp from Clark's lip, then kissed him. 

"Al-ex- _and_ er." 

"In series, then." Lex smiled almost fondly at Lionel, eyes cool and calm. "One: I didn't care whether you found out or not, by rumor or in person, now or later. What Clark and I are to each has nothing to do with you. I don't care if you know about us, if Clark's parents know about us, if the Daily Plant and Inquisitor and People magazine know about us." 

"I can assure you they will. Unless we come to an ag--" 

"Two: you're not exactly a reliable authority on the subject of appropriate love affairs. Your permission is unrequested, your approval nonrequired, and your opinion irrelevant." 

Lionel began to look rather white around the mouth. "Think again. I can make it relevant. You should know better, Lex; you should damned well know--" 

"Which brings us to three. Of course I 'spared a thought' for your reaction. Quite a few thoughts, actually. Blackmail? You have nothing on me that isn't far less interesting than what I have on you. Disinheritance? Fine. I can make my way without you, but how many sons do you have? Cut the last thread. Set _me_ free and see where it leaves _you_. Extortion? I keep saying this and you keep not listening: you have no idea what I'm capable of. Attack me, directly or through people I care about, and you'll find out." 

"You dare threaten me?" Lionel's eyes blazed. "You're an infant, Lex, to think you can threaten me without counting the cost--" 

"Funny you should say that." Lex glanced aside, at the bookcase behind Lionel's head. Lionel turned, but all he saw was a small bronze figurine. "I have learned to count the cost. Finally." A smile, reminiscent and sorrowful. "It took me long enough." He put down his glass, took a step closer to his father. Smile entirely gone. Eyes calm, cold. "But that doesn't mean I won't pay it. If I have to. Don't make me have to." 

Lionel stared. He was used to the smirking, swaggering mimicry of strength. This was...different. 

"That answers your questions, and ends this conversation." 

Lex turned away. Lionel released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. 

The two of them. Clark sitting on the arm of a chair, Lex standing beside him, an arm around the boy's shoulders. Both looking at him with barely-polite disdain. 

Not the mimicry of strength, but the real thing. 

He wanted to say _Ruled by your emotions again, Lex?_ or _You will regret this_ , but the first was palpably idiotic, and the second... not a threat he wanted to make just now, not to those faces, not to the implacable stranger inhabiting his son's body. 

"We're not done," he said. Knew the words for a face-saving gesture and hated it; saw by the curl of Lex's lip Lex knew it as well and hated that, too. 

For once, Lionel didn't hate his walking stick, his half-crippled legs. They prevented him from running, kept him walking, upright and dignified, as he left the castle for what he refused to believe was the last time. 


End file.
